solace found in dreams
by coeurfeyrac
Summary: Lily Luna Potter just isn't a legend kind of girl - - LilyTeddy, for Ellie


**AN-** I'll never be as amazing at LilyTeddy as Ellie- s i l v e r a u r o r a-, who is an amazing, wonderful, fantastic person and writer, but I thought I'd give one a go. Merry Christmas, Elles! :)

solace found in dreams  
**LilyTeddy, for Ellie**

It's just not going to work.

* * *

She's the kind of person that just can't live without her perfection. She needs that eyeliner, those friends, those shortshort skirts to survive, because she's Lily Luna Potter, and she's got a legend to live up to.

But Lily Luna Potter just isn't a legend kind of girl, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

She's got it down to an art. Rebellion is as natural as breathing, for her.

Dyeing her hair exotic colours? _Check_.

Dressing like a ( slut ), just to get noticed? _Check_.

And oh, being a _Slytherin_, honey? _Check_, _check_, _check_.

Everyone was surprised, when she was placed there. A _Potter_, in _Slytherin_? Surely not!

_Surely_.

But it's not everyone, is it?

Albus Severus. What a bastard. Her brother had always known who she really was, inside, and she hatedhated_hated_ that. She had to hide, to be someone else, and Albus _knowing_ that…

It didn't fit. It didn't work. She didn't _like_ it.

So she pushes him away, and her family with him, and she refuses to connect with Al on any level.

* * *

But then Albus needs her, needs her support, and she takes delight in taunting him. Help, from a Slytherin? Thought you could do better, Al!

She listens, eventually, because she's a Slytherin, and she's loyal after cunning.

Al, she discovers, is in love.

Lily doesn't quite believe in love, but she helps him nonetheless.

And if he knows he best, then she knows him best, too, and she isn't surprised when the confession finally comes.

"It's Scorpius."

"I know."

* * *

She doesn't know what to do, now. She sets Al up with Scorpius, of course, after concluding that the latter is also gay.

But now she's down a boyfriend, another factor in her masquerade of rebellion. Scorpius was her link with the enemy side, a bad boy to parade on her arm and give her Uncle Ron an aneurism.

She needs a now accessory, one even more dangerous, more rebellious.

Sergei Zabini? No, he was too stupid; he wouldn't last long.

Lysander Scamander? But she knew Molly was coveting him. Still, tempting…

_Or_…

Ah. She knew the perfect candidate.

* * *

Her perfectperfect cousin didn't deserve him, she knew.

But then, neither did Lily, and that, in her eyes, made him fair game.

So that summer, the summer before her seventh year, she goes to visit the boy (man, now, remember) that she's known _forever_.

* * *

When she turns up at his flat, freshly dyed hair gleaming turquoise and sporting her shortest skirt, he can't quite believe it.

(Because they've had some history, haven't they?)

"Hey, Ted," she says as she swans in, and she feels _ohso_powerful as she senses his eyes grazing her swaying hips. "What's up?"

He comes back to his senses with a thud, and he grabs her shoulder before she can even make it to the kitchen. "What the hell are you doing here?" he hisses, furiously.

Lily looks pointedly at his hand and raises her eyebrows, thinking she she's winning as his eyes rove up and down her attire, but when they look up to hers, brown on green, she's horrified to see a shred of _pity_ in them.

"What have you done to yourself, Lily?" he asks her sadly, and she immediately hardens her heart against him, beginning to wonder why she came.

But she wants that power, that rebellion _ohso_much…

She stays, and he can't quite make himself kick her out, for whatever twisted reason.

* * *

It's gone on far too long, now. The summer is half over, and somehow, _somehow_, they've grown close.

Too close.

She spends every night at his flat, and he'll cook and she'll try to help, while making a huge mess, and they'll laugh together.

It's become about so much more than rebellion, for her. And for Teddy…

He can't really think about it (there are too many reasons why not).

But they're happy, in the moment they're stuck in, and they start to forget the rest of the world.

Then Victoire comes home from that holiday, the one Teddy conveniently forgot to tell Lily about, and the spell is broken.

* * *

"Why didn't you tell me you were still with Vic?"

Her eyes are sad, betrayed, and she looks slightly defeated. She would hatehatehate it if she could see herself, because it's ( not even an act ).

He can barely bear it. But he has to.

"Why does it matter, Lils? We're just friends."

(He's lying.)

She's hurting, and it's his fault, and oh, how she hates that. Because he's done it again.

"I know," she says, "I fucking _know_, Ted, ok? But it doesn't make any difference, friendship, does it? You'll always leave me for Vic, and I'll just be left on the side."

He shakes his head painfully, and holds her thin shoulders in his hands. "When that happened before, you were seven, and I was eighteen and stupid," he tells her, and his eyes are desperate. "I promise I won't let it happen again."

She doesn't believe him, but she leans up and kisses him, anyway, because it's just the wrong (right) thing to do at that moment.

* * *

When they're woken the next morning, for a terrible, selfish moment Lily thinks it's Victoire, and she feels almost victorious, because surely this will mean Victoire will leave Teddy, and she can have him _all to herself_.

It's Albus' voice, however, that rouses her, however, Al's hands that drag Lily from the bed, Al that thrusts her crumpled clothes into her hands from the various places that they've ended up and instructs her to dress.

It's Al that apparates her away, just as Teddy's beginning to realise what's happening, and it's Al that apparates back again to yell at Teddy.

But it's Lily that curls up and cries, alone in Al's flat.

Because, somewhere in the midst of rebellion, she's fallen in love.

* * *

They don't talk again until Christmas. Al is furious, but he promises not to tell anyone, and when Lily goes back to school, it's with even thicker make-up, and an even sharper tongue, to hide her heart.

She doesn't quite know if it's broken, because she's never felt love before now.

But it hurts, and that's enough to make her hide herself even more.

* * *

The term is long, because she's grown to hate everyone in the school, and when the holiday finally comes, it's with a sense of release.

But then she has to spend time with her family, and so the masquerade continues. When her parents throw a party, she smiles and greets the hordes of aunts, uncles, and cousins with smiles and hugs, and they know something's wrong, because this isn't Lily, this isn't Lily at all.

It's only when the last family arrives that her pretty little façade breakbreakbreaks.

Victoire swans in with Teddy on her arm and a triumphant grin on her face. She locks eyes with Lily, and her baby blues are full of malice.

Dropping the plate of mince pies she had been passing around on the floor, Lily runs out.

* * *

She's ruined the party. Everyone is employed to search for her, and it's Teddy that searches most fervently, 'helped' by a smug Victoire.

But it's James that finds her, in the end, and when he sees his sister, the girl he pushed away for being a Slytherin, looking so small, so broken, he simply puts his arms around her and lets her cry into his T-shirt until she can cry no more. Because Lily is usually so strong, and he can't quite comprehend this fragile little person.

It's with the help, then, of Al and James, that she grows up, drops the short skirts and instead dresses like she wants to, really.

She tries to move on.

Victoire _doesn't_, though, it seems. She refuses to let it go, even after Lily makes it clear that she wants nothing to do with Teddy any longer, and Lily isn't surprised when a letter arrives by owl, asking her to be a bridesmaid at their wedding.

She can't accept. She just…

She _can't_.

But that's what Vic wants, she knows, so she does it.

* * *

Marriage.

It's so final. It's the symbol of an ending, for Lily.

She wonders if it's the same for Teddy. And, in her selfishness, she hopes it is so.

The church is full of tears. Happy tears from joyful eyes, proud tears from Molly's eyes.

_Lily's_ tears from _Lily's_ eyes.

* * *

"Does anyone know a reason why this marriage may not lawfully take place…"

The expectant silence, that everyone knows will not be broken.

She stands, a tiny figure against the rows of Weasleys, fragile and broken in her eighteen years of age.

The words render her heart in two. "You _promised_," she whispers, and though her voice cracks, the sound rings around the church as loudly as if she'd shouted.

She turns and leaves, her long bridesmaid's dress sweeping the floor as she flees from Teddy yet again.

The silence that follows is deafening, endless.

Teddy follows her.

And so, the story continues.


End file.
